Cha-cha-cha

About Tokyo, unimpressive, and the comparison undeserving its implicit smug self-congratulation for cleverness.

The danger posed by being slipped a mickey in a B-girl bar in one specified neighborhood of Tokyo is extremely easy for any traveler to avoid.

The danger posed by thugs ripping your bag from your body as you are standing in a museum ticket line, taking a picture of a famous landmark, walking to a tapas bar, coming away from an ATM in a tourist office, trying to hail a taxi in front of your hotel, standing listening to a street busker, buying something at a street stand or storefront, or doing almost anything most travelers commonly do (which does not typically include hanging out in sleazy dives) is hard for any traveler to avoid in places where such crimes are common.

alanw

Gosh, I don't see any of those examples in the links you posted above. Just the same general beware-of-pickpockets-crime-is-on-the-rise warnings that the US State Department posts in their pages on Canada, Singapore, New Zealand, the UK, and Vatican City.

It's beginning to sound like someone has some kind of unhealthy fixation with trashing a city.

Regardless, my earlier posted warning still stands. Please, please, please do yourself a favor and stay out of Spain!

LapLap

This is not the first time this warning has been published by the US Embassy in Tokyo
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/japan...oys-girls.html
(I'm not sure how 'clever' it is to remember a comparatively recent thread on FT - but thank you anyway)

What I don't understand is how information from a Government source is relevant for one country but entirely irrelevant for another - you yourself completely rubbished the warning for US Nationals in Tokyo's tourist area yet highlighted the warning given to Australians for exactly the same crime in the same area.

Nevertheless, it was very nice of you to make my point for me.

Cha-cha-cha

Then you must not have been looking, or you would have seen this from the Australian government page:

Petty crime, such as pickpocketing and bag snatching, is particularly common in tourist areas and on public transport in large Spanish cities, especially Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Seville. ...

and this on the US page:

...street crimes against tourists occur in the principal tourist areas. ... Criminals frequent tourist areas and major attractions such as museums, monuments, restaurants, outdoor cafes, Internet cafes, hotel lobbies, beach resorts, city buses, subways, trains, train stations, airports, and ATMs. In Madrid, incidents have been reported in all major tourist areas, including the area near the Prado Museum, near Atocha train station, in Retiro Park, in areas of old Madrid including near the Royal Palace and in Plaza Mayor. There have been a number of passport and bag thefts reported at Madrid’s Barajas Airport, local hotels, as well as in El Rastro (Madrid’s flea market) and in the Metro. In Barcelona, the largest number of incidents reported also occurred in major tourist areas, on Las Ramblas, Barcelona’s El Prat airport, Sants train station, Metro stations, in the Sagrada Familia Area, in the Gothic Quarter, in Parc Güell, in Plaza Real, and along Barcelona’s beaches....

and this on the Canada page:

Thefts have reportedly increased in Madrid. Known high-risk locations are the Puerta del Sol area and surrounding streets, Gran Vìa, Plaza Mayor, near the Prado Museum, the Atocha train station, Retiro Park and on the subway. In Barcelona, thefts occur most frequently on Las Ramblas (often in Internet cafes), in Plaza Real and surrounding streets of the old city, and at the Sants train and bus station. Hotel room theft is also commonplace. Pickpockets and purse snatchers ... are especially active in crowded areas, including at airports, on public transportation, and in hotel lobbies, restaurants, outdoor cafes or tourist attractions, or on the road. ...

The idea that any sort of realistic reports on crime in Tokyo are even vaguely comparable to what's quoted above, is as laughable as the idea that I'm expressing prejudice against any given city or country by reporting the truth.

Cha-cha-cha

I feel I've had my say on this now and since I doubt that any replies will be anything but repetitions of denial, I'm unsubscribing from this thread after posting this.

LapLap

That's a shame. I really did want to learn what it was that causes you to give total and complete credence to a Government's published advice for one country.

And yet when the advice from a Government is about another country you seem to imply that the advice is 'laughable' and 'unrealistic'.

FLYMSY

it seems to me that this thread has degenerated into a p*ssing match without much useful info being imparted now.

Second & third hand reports of crime, I don't find particularly useful, nor do I find useful the very defensive comments about the other posters' hometowns. Yes, travelers have to be wary, and that is a shame. Bottomline, crime happens everywhere and the criminals are to blame, not the victims.

Seat64A

Whilst I, too, have noticed the defensiveness on this thread of (some of) those who appear to live in Barcelona, second and third hand reports (along with personal experiences) are all we have. Police statistics are of dubious validity and I am not aware of any victimisation studies of visitors to Barcelona. If it has not already been done, perhaps a PhD student could interview a sample of visitors flying out of El Prat about their experiences of crime in the city......Somehow, I can't see the authorities allowing such a piece of research to proceed (not just in Barcelona but anywhere).

alanw

I suspect anyone would be defensive if others were spreading lies and half-truths about their city.

GK

I fail to understand why anyone wants to go on Las Ramblas in BCN anyway.. it's a crowded tourist trap, the restaurants aren't any good and there's only so many 'human statues' you can bother to look at.

Mr GK and I have been into the city hundreds of times, and yes, he was pickpocketed once on the metro, but then has been more careful since then.. that's all you need to do, just remove the opportunity and you'll be fine.

LapLap

I was approached by just such a student on the air-side part of Valencia airport. I'm not sure how well the research would have gone in English but in Castilian we covered a lot of ground relating to my experience of Valencia as a tourist.
So yes, the authorities in Spain do allow such research to proceed. They even allow it to take place in the 'controlled' part of the airports.

On that particular occasion I had taken about 50 colleagues from London to the city for a weekend Christmas beano. Over the course of a Friday night the group dispersed more and more thinly into Valencia's famed and varied nightlife, pretty much all of them sticking out as tourists.
No problems whatsoever.
Even the guy who'd left the hotel without writing down where he was staying and remembered nothing about its location, or its name, ended up back in bed safely through the kindness and concern of a series of helpful locals. (From the historic town centre to the Silken would have required a lot of patient assistance)

So when the graduate student, through me, took data relevant to so many visitors, all of whom would have been fair game for a criminal, the only negative comment I had was how I'd been mildly screwed by a taxi driver on the way back to the airport (I'd stupidly asked him to drive by the CAC as some of the other passengers hadn't seen it and he took advantage of that to then go the long way to the airport... I really should have seen it coming!)

Admittedly, I haven't had the chance to return to Barcelona for a while, but not so long ago I went back to Valencia (Spain's third largest city) and did so in a wheelchair with my Japanese husband.
If anyone is going to give off a vibe as vulnerable visitors screaming 'ROB ME!' it's the couple speaking in English, where one fits the prime victim profile by being from the Far East and where the other is immobile and has a couple of bags stacked onto the wheelchair in front of her.

Despite all those times I've seen enticing looking bags slipped from tourists' shoulders and goods taken from people oblivious to the outside world in their unlocked cars (and it seems to me I've personally been witness to more crime in Spain than anyone else here - in addition to which I have a close uncle who was a policeman and am extremely close to a cousin who currently is a policeman - both of whom are very witty and have tons of great anecdotes) I didn't feel at all uneasy.
We stayed vigilant, we rolled through Valencia as tourists, we used the metro (which has EXCELLENT wheelchair access ^) and nobody targetted us. By avoiding a taxi we didn't get screwed over this way either - although this is usually easy enough to avoid by getting the driver to confirm how much it should cost right at the beginning... the onus is then on them to justify any major discrepancy. It's something I'd simply forgotten to do previously.

Seat64A

I absolutely adore Valencia and will nip down from the UK even for ten hours (not as mad as it sounds and, courtesy of Ryanair, cheaper for me than a day in London).

I think we need to distinguish between pickpocketing/bag snatching and more violent crime. For example, Madrid - like Barcelona - suffers from more than its share of pickpockets and bag snatchers. Yet I feel much safer late at night in Madrid than I would in any UK town, let alone big city. Only a couple of weeks ago one of my evenings in Madrid ended in Sol at around 11pm and I left on the 53 bus to return to my hotel. This is not something I would have contemplated in my home town here in the UK. The potential for an unpleasant encounter or, worse still, casual violence is all to evident in the UK.

longwaybackhome

I'm one of those lucky people to whom nothing happened in Barcelona except heat exhaustion and sunburn, but I was talking to random people today, saying I was there last week. One woman said she had her purse stolen while she was at an internet cafe, another guy said two of his relatives had gotten their wallets stolen. That weirds me out.

Having said that, I'm never going back to Barcelona...unless the temperature is below 27 C.

SAPMAN

Seat64, Likely Madrid is less of an issue at 11pm as so many people are still out, finishing dinner, etc. I find the same in Argentina -- most of the streets are quite busy at 11pm, where in Chicago the neighborhoods are less busy (and more open to crime).

I agree, some cities may have more violent crime and others more pickpocket type crime. But I think the number of violent crimes is much less -- probably by 100 times, so unlikely to encounter it. Also violent crimes are less likely to happen in crowded areas (like a metro) or in a busy tourist area.

My beef is why some governments do not seem to crack down on the pickpocket or smash and grab types. Despite what some say, it does hurt tourism. I have met many who won't go to Mexico due to issue at the border towns - even though areas like Cancun are very safe.

Seat64A

It's only partly a question of how busy a town/city is late at night. Many town and cities in the UK are very busy late at night at the weekend but middle-aged and older people are often hardly to be seen and in these cases the streets are teeming with young people with an alarming proportion out of control.